On Grieving
by jennifersilva1013
Summary: Cora goes through the grieving process following Sybil's death
1. Denial

Denial

The sun has almost risen before she is aware of hands gently wrapping around her arms and guiding her to stand. O'Brien and Mary flank either side of her and walk her out of the room. She stopped talking to Sybil hours ago, her thoughts drying up along with her tears, until all that was left was numbing silence. Her weariness cloaks her in gossamer and everything is seen through a haze. She is vaguely aware of being led into her room, of Mary holding her as O'Brien unties the binds of her dressing gown, of Robert's dressing room door whooshing open and Mary shaking her head before he pauses and then retreats again.

The feel of the bed behind her knees causes her body to instinctively recline and she gets tucked in as though she were a child. Mary's feather light kiss to her forehead sends her off to dreams as her exhausted body and mind shut down.

Cora spends the next few days going through life's motions. She shows up in body to where she is expected, whether that be the drawing room or the library or the dining room. Meals are a dark affair. Robert eats without speaking, Mary and Edith pepper the oppressive silence with jags of nervous chatter, Violet interjects with her usual comments and Cora pushes her food around and every so often a forkful makes it up to her mouth. Her mind is miles and decades away, usually, recalling moments with Sybil, memories so vivid she is dazed when her attention is brought back to the table, unsure where reality lies.

More often she finds herself in the nursery, cooing and rocking Sybbie. She closes her eyes and inhales her sweet baby scent and her body aches, the way it always did just after each of her children were born, a mother's primal need to feel her newborn close. It doesn't take much for her to pretend it is twenty-four years earlier and that she is singing lullabies to a different baby. She cannot stop herself from looking down at Sybbie's face and mirroring the thoughts she had when holding her Sybil, imagining the future that had laid before her daughter, all the hopes and dreams she had for her. They look so much alike it's painful in its rightness. The only jolt to her revelries is Tom's presence instead of Robert's but it is still better than sitting in her room, thinking...

The funeral brings her out of the clouds of denial, the finality of saying goodbye too much to ignore. For a moment, she feels her insides breaking apart, becoming untethered when Violet leans down and kisses her more gently than the older woman has ever done. Her mind and her heart are not ready for the emotions teaming to be unleashed. She knows that it isn't over. It has barely just begun.


	2. Anger

Anger

Her body trembles, constantly, with a boiling rage she cannot contain. She remains awake well into the night, pacing her room, the frightful energy needing a release and short of throwing every object within her grasp, this is the next best option. Robert is sacrificed and becomes the face she can put on her blame. Because someone did this, not Fate or God or the laws of science. It has to be him, something tangible that she can slice with her words and bruise with her cold silences.

Weeks pass and the shroud of fury she wears keeps everyone at a distance and she is just fine with that. She does not want their comfort or their condolences, afraid for her icy wrath to warm and melt under their care. If she doesn't have her anger, what would she be left with?

Cora goes for many solitary walks around the grounds, head down, stomping a forceful path from point A to point B. She rides again, something she hasn't done in years, and she pushes the animal fast and far, the wind blowing her around in a frenzy. She feels some of the tension that has seized her shoulders lessen slightly and when she is out there galloping like a fiend she can almost breathe around the hatred building a dam in her chest.

Robert watches her trot back to the stables one day, her horse panting hard from her exertions. 'You'll break your neck going at those speeds.' He says it with concern but she wants none of that from him. 'We should be so lucky' is her reply as she leaves him open mouthed and grieving.

Violet's invitation only fuels the flame of her ire. She wonders what Robert has said to her and she is insulted that they would chose to gang up on her now. An ingrained sense of duty prevents her from flat out refusing and the ride to the Dowager house is passed in uncomfortable silence. Robert does not speak to her again after being rebuffed in the library and she is thankful, bitter words waiting on the tip of her tongue if he should breach the quiet gulf between them.

Dr Clarkson's words seep into the cracks already forming in her stony facade. She cannot comprehend what he is saying and then she understands too much. There was no hope, there was never any hope. Sybil's destiny was to die in that bed that night and it is too much for her to hold in. Her anger washes away on the flood of her tears as she realizes she could never have saved her baby. Robert's strong arms are the only anchors keeping her from sinking to the floor.


	3. Guilt

Guilt/Bargaining

Cora does something she hasn't done since girlhood, she prays. She walks to the church almost every day and sits on the hard pews, a solitary parishioner and begs for a second chance, one more time to do it all over again. This time she will not fail Sybil. She will hold her closer as a babe, she will shower more affection on the toddling girl, she will spend more time listening to her young dreams. This time, Cora will see the first budding of love between her daughter and the chauffer and she will embrace it, encourage it, so that it can grow in the sunlight instead of the dark corners of the garage. And somehow, this will save her, they will no longer be doomed from the start.

Sometimes, Robert accompanies her, but only to the churchyard, where his path diverges from hers as he goes to Sybil's grave. She cannot bring herself there yet, the idea of speaking to a stone causing her palms to sweat and the bile to rise in her throat. He is more nervous than she has ever seen him, their reconciliation still fragile, and she is an unchartered territory, something he has never seen before. When her prayers go unanswered she leaves the church behind, seeking a new way to temper the guilt that has taken over. She seeks out Isobel, the ultimate do-gooder, to help her.

Her volunteering at the charity hospital in Thursk is met with Robert's furrowed brows, his permanent expression lately. The new lines in his face add to Cora's burden, knowing she has put them there with her inability to rise out of herself. She wants to steady his anxiety, as she has always done in the past, but she does not have it in herself this time. She is isolated in her mind's endless rotation of _what if_…

Cora spends more and more time on the women's ward of the hospital, writing letters for the patients, reading to girls the same age as her daughters who have just given birth but who have no healthy, pink cheeked bundle to show for it. Or who are waiting to die themselves. She immerses herself in their pain and suffering, hoping that if she burdens enough of it she will be absolved of her own hand in Sybil's death. No matter what Dr Clarkson has said to her, she still believes something could have been done, and if not by him, then by her. She is a mother afterall, and should have had the power to protect her daughter. It is the one thing she swore to always do, and she has failed miserably.

She goes to the attic when she thinks everyone is pre-occupied, intent on finding Sybil's christening gown for Sybbie's upcoming ceremony. Opening a dusty box she find remnants of a childhood, rattles, baby booties, tiny dresses. Sybil's favorite blanket is wrapped in tissue paper and Cora lifts it, burying her face in its faded fabric. The distinctive, milky newborn smell has been replaced with a musty fragrance but she hardly notices, her mind recalling what her nose cannot find. Edith happens upon her, kneeling on the floor, crying into the blanket. She feels the soft touch of her daughter as she puts an arm around her shoulders but the care in her embrace only pushes her deeper into despair. She doesn't recognize her voice and isn't even aware that she is speaking. 'I've failed. I've failed you all'. She repeats it, her new mantra and the weight of her heart is more than she can hold. She is sure it will fall out with the heaviness of her guilt.


	4. Depression

Depression

Days go by and she no longer has the desire to leave her room. A permanent exhaustion seeps into her weary bones, her dreams plagued with visions of Sybil's last moments. The nightly bombardment of seeing her daughter die over and over is too much and she stops sleeping all together. She is aware of Robert and O'Brien on a detached level as they pass in and out of her hazy fog. They are the only two allowed in the room and usually meet once a day, near the door, O'Brien leaving with another untouched tray and Robert entering, inspecting it with a frown. He is somewhere she cannot reach. He hangs on to her as she weeps and strokes her hand as she stares out the window. She is drowning and she wants to beg him to let her go before she pulls them both under, but she knows he won't. He will try to bring her back to shore.

The pain she feels is a full body sickness that leaves her shaking, begging to be released. Her whole body pulses with the pain of loss and she feels as though she is being torn apart. Some days even breathing seems an insurmountable chore and she struggles to take in air. When she does there is a brief respite before the oxygen leaves her body, and it caves in on itself needing more air, each gasp leaving her drained and she wonders when the tiredness will take over and she will cease to be.

Robert barely leaves her side and she wonders, vaguely, if he is afraid she'll harm herself. She thinks about it, sometimes, in the darkness that bleeds into the bedroom at two AM. But she cannot act on her thoughts; this is her punishment for vanity, greed, vice, pride and all of the other sins she is guilty of and she is glad to pay the penance, believing this overwhelming grief is her due. Robert cannot understand this, he coaxes her to do little things, take a bath, have a bite of toast and she relents because it is easier than fighting. There is a small part of her that wants to cling to him and let him take it all away and sometimes she relents to this too and he holds her so tightly that the comfort of his arms borders on pain. He whispers nonsensical things in her ear, his voice breaking over pleas to come back to him, to let him help her and her broken heart breaks more knowing she is the cause of his pain.

Most days she says little, she feels as though she is hardly existing, the only proof that she is still there is Robert's attention. She feels the great void of time pressing in around her. There are no seconds or minutes, day or night. She cannot say how long she has been laying in this misery, but she dimly suspects it is a long time, the weariness of her body like that of someone long in battle. She is sure she can't take much longer of this and by the haggardness of Robert's face, neither can he.

There comes the day that she just cannot get out of bed. Her mind is telling her to rise when O'Brien comes in but her legs do not obey. She is mildly curious, but even pondering the new revolution of her body's functions is too much and she leaves it as something not worth thinking about. Robert is called but she just stares ahead, too tired to acknowledge him and her awareness is only brought back to the room when Dr Clarkeson's face is inches from hers. His voice seems to travel through molasses, the words sticking and slow in her mind. "This will help you sleep". It's a meaningless jumble of sound to her and she swallows the liquid in her mouth and feels her eyelids droop and she cries as sleep puts its arms around her and pulls her down.


	5. Acceptance

Acceptance

Cora finds herself back in the nursery and she is amazed at the change in her granddaughter, who is already getting so big. The sweet sounds of the baby cause her heart to flutter in contentment, for the first time in so long that for a moment she thinks she is having a heart attack. Robert finds her, sitting and singing to the small girl sleeping on her chest and she smiles slightly at him and tears come to her eyes at the way he grips the door frame, his relief making him weak kneed. She swallows the dark thoughts of guilt that his presence conjures, knowing she cannot go back to that place without losing herself completely. He has suffered greatly with her and she must let go so that they both can move on.

Robert leads her to the churchyard and her pace slows as her heart beat quickens. She panics that maybe it is too soon but Robert holds her tighter and she knows that she needs to do this. She misses Sybil terribly still, she will always be her phantom limb, throbbing just at the edge of her consciousness but she is getting used to the feeling, it is not robbing her of all sense as it previously had.

She kneels on the new grass and places the bouquet of flowers against the large stone. Tears come as she reads the name of her baby etched in the cold stone and she presses a kiss to her fingers before tracing the letters. She feels Robert's hand squeeze her shoulder and she rises, unable yet to say goodbye, instead she thinks _until I see you again._ Cora turns to the safety of Robert's arms and she feels some more of the grief that has cloaked her for so long, slip slowly away.


End file.
